מִרְמָה
deceit
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4820 appears in the Book of Psalms — 14 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Psalms
- Psalms 5:6 וּ/מִרְמָ֗ה conj + n c fs You will destroy those who speak lies. Yahweh abhors the blood-thirsty and deceitful man.
- Psalms 10:7 וּ/מִרְמ֣וֹת conj + n c fp His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.
- Psalms 17:1 מִרְמָֽה n c fs Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea; Give ear to my prayer, that doesn't go out of deceitful lips.
- Psalms 24:4 לְ/מִרְמָֽה prep + n c fs He who has clean hands and a pure heart; Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, And has not sworn deceitfully.
- Psalms 34:13 מִרְמָֽה n c fs Keep your tongue from evil, And your lips from speaking lies.
- Psalms 35:20 מִ֝רְמוֹת n c fp For they don't speak peace, But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.
- Psalms 36:3 וּ/מִרְמָ֑ה conj + n c fs The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
- Psalms 38:12 וּ֝/מִרְמ֗וֹת conj + n c fp They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, And meditate deceits all day long.
- Psalms 43:1 מִרְמָ֖ה n c fs Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.
- Psalms 50:19 מִרְמָֽה n c fs "You give your mouth to evil. You harnesses your tongue for deceit.
- Psalms 52:4 מִרְמָֽה n c fs You love all devouring words, You deceitful tongue.
- Psalms 55:11 וּ/מִרְמָֽה conj + n c fs Destructive forces are within her. Threats and lies don't depart from her streets.
- Psalms 55:23 וּ֭/מִרְמָה conj + n c fs But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, But I will trust in you.
- Psalms 109:2 מִ֭רְמָה n c fs For they have opened the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit against me. They have spoken to me with a lying tongue.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, מרמה (mirmâh) means “deceit.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 27:35. Spanning 38 verses in 12 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Psalms (37% of all occurrences). From the same root come רמה, רמה and רמיה. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4820 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 38
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 38 distinct verses.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #922
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 922 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 38 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 38 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 26 verses · 68%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 10 verses · 26%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 5%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 3 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Deceit 15×, Deceitful 7×, Deceitfully 3×
- American Standard Version†: Deceit 16×, Deceitful 5×, Guile 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Deceit 16×, Deceitful 6×, Deceitfully 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Deceit 23×, And 2×, Deceitfully 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4820 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4820 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4820 across 39† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4820 across 41† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 0 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
מרמה I m. a Benjamite 1 Ch 8
מרמה II deceit, treachery
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
II. n.pr.m. a Benjamite 1 Ch 8:10; 𝔊 Ιμαμα, A 𝔊L Μαρμ(ι)α.
III. n.f. deceit, treachery;—abs. מ׳ Am 8:5 +; pl. abs. מִרְמוֹת ψ 10:7 +;—deceit, of balances, מֹאזְנֵי מ׳ i.e. deceptive balances Am 8:5 (‖ שֶׁקֶר), Ho 12:8; Pr 11:1 (opp. אֶבֶן שְׁלֵמָה), 20:23, אַבְנֵי מ׳ Mi 6:11 (v. [מאזן] p. 24); especially treachery, craftiness, 2 K 9:23, בְּמ׳ treacherously, Gn 27:35 (J), and (of crafty speech) 34:13 (P); שִׂפְתֵי מ׳ ψ 17:1 i.e. treacherous lips, לְשׁוֹן מ׳ 52:6, פִּי מ׳ 109:2 (‖ לְשׁוֹן שָׁ֑קֶר), דִּבְרֵי מִרְמוֹת 35:20, נִשְׁבַע לְמ׳ ψ 24:4 (‖ לַשָּׁוְא); cf. Is 53:9 (‖ חָמָם); also Ho 12:1 (‖ כַּחַשׁ), Je 5:27; 9:5(×2), 7; Zp 1:9 (+ חָמָם), ψ 10:7 (+ תֹּךְ, ‖ עָמָל וָאָוֶן), 34:14; 36:4 (+ אָוֶן), 38:13; 50:19; 55:12 (+ תֹּךְ), Jb 15:35; 31:5 (‖ שָׁוְא), Pr 12:20; 14:8; 26:24 Dn 8:25; opp. מִשְׁפָּט Pr 12:5, + עֵד שְׁקָרִים v 17, + יָפִחַ כְּזָבִים 14:25 (Hi Wild Toy read מְדַמֶּה for מרמה, but II. דמה not elsewhere Pi); אִישׁ דָּמִים וּמ׳ ψ 5:7 (‖ דֹּבְרֵי כָזָב), cf. 55:24, אִישׁ מ׳ וְעַוְלָה 43:1; יַעֲשֶׂה מ׳ Dn 11:23.—ii. מִרְמָה n.pr. v. p. 599.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רמה (râmâh) (H7411) — to throw.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
מִרְמָה
- fraud, guile. Num. R. s. 20. Koh. R. to I, 16 הלב עושה מ׳ the heart plans fraud; a. fr.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 19 distinct written forms H4820 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| מִרְמָֽה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 8:5 | 12 |
| מִ֭רְמָה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 11:1 | 3 |
| מִרְמָ֑ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 11:23 | 3 |
| מִרְמָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 12:7 | 3 |
| מִרְמָ֣ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 9:8 | 3 |
| וּ/מִרְמָֽה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 55:11 | 2 |
| בְּ/מִרְמָ֑ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Genesis 27:35 | 1 |
| בְּ/מִרְמָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Genesis 34:13 | 1 |
| בְּ/מִרְמָ֛ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 9:6 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/מִרְמָ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 11:12 | 1 |
| וּ/מִרְמ֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 10:7 | 1 |
| וּ/מִרְמָ֑ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 36:3 | 1 |
| וּ/מִרְמָ֗ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 5:6 | 1 |
| וּ֝/מִרְמ֗וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 38:12 | 1 |
| וּ֭/מִרְמָה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 55:23 | 1 |
| לְ/מִרְמָֽה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 24:4 | 1 |
| מִ֝רְמוֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Psalms 35:20 | 1 |
| מִרְמָ֥ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Kings 9:23 | 1 |
| מִרְמָה֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 8:25 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4820, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 34 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 38 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 27:35
- 2 Kings 9:23
- Job 15:35
- Psalms 5:6
- Proverbs 11:1
- Isaiah 53:9
- Jeremiah 5:27
- Daniel 8:25
- Hosea 12:7
- Amos 8:5
- Micah 6:11
- Zephaniah 1:9
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
